yed to
her of interest in her and care for her apart from any personal feeling.
It was the first time she had encountered a gaze in which simple human
fellowship expressed itself as a strongly-felt bond. Such a glance is
half the vocation of the priest or spiritual guide of men, and Romola
felt it impossible again to question his authority to speak to her. She
stood silent, looking at him. And he spoke again.

"You assert your freedom proudly, my daughter. But who is so base as
the debtor that thinks himself free?"

There was a sting in those words, and Romola's countenance changed as if
a subtle pale flash had gone over it.

"And you are flying from your debts: the debt of a Florentine woman; the
debt of a wife. You are turning your back on the lot that has been
appointed for you--you are going to choose another. But can man or
woman choose duties? No more than they can choose their birthplace or
their father and mother. My daughter, you are fleeing from the presence
of God into the wilderness."

As the anger melted from Romola's mind, it had given place to a new
presentiment of the strength there might be in submission, if this man,
at whom she was beginning to look with a vague reverence, had some valid
law to show her. But no--it was impossible; he could not know what
determined her. Yet she could not again simply refuse to be guided; she
was constrained to plead; and in her new need to be reverent while she
resisted, the title which she had never given him before came to her
lips without forethought, "My father, you cannot know the reasons which
compel me to go. None can know them but myself. None can judge for me.
I have been driven by great sorrow. I am resolved to go."

"I know enough, my daughter: my mind has been so far illuminated
concerning you, that I know enough. You are not happy in your married
life; but I am not a confessor, and I seek to know nothing that should
be reserved for the seal of confession. I have a divine warrant to stop
you, which does not depend on such knowledge. You were warned by a
message from heaven, delivered in my presence--you were warned before
marriage, when you might still have lawfully chosen to be free from the
marriage-bond. But you chose the bond; and in wilfully breaking it--I
speak to you as a pagan, if the holy mystery of matrimony is not sacred
to you--you are breaking a pledge. Of what wrongs will you complain, my
daughter, when you yourself are